Laura Lee Guhrke (16 page)

With that thought, he felt all his muscles tightening. He lowered his gaze to her crossed arms and the full breasts they shielded. He’d been right. She didn’t need that bust improver.

He returned his gaze to her face. She was staring at him, her brown eyes wide, her lips slightly parted. She might be a little off her chump, but Sophie Haversham also had the most kissable mouth of any woman he’d ever seen.

Mick knew he was heading into dangerous territory again. She was probably a thief. Worse, she knew the identity of whoever had shot at him. Letting his body do the thinking could get him killed, but knowing that
didn’t stop him from wanting that hot, soft, cherry red mouth on his.

Suddenly, she stiffened and frowned at him, her expression of fear changing in less than a second to one of outrage. “You are such a cad. A low and despicable cad.”

Mick sat back in his chair, startled by this lightning-quick change in her.

“You should be ashamed,” she said. “Trying to frighten me about those prostitutes, when you know it’s a lie.”

If ever there was an example of women’s intuition, Sophie was it, but Mick did not let his surprise show in his expression. “Good guess.”

“This little trick you’ve played on me is cruel,” she went on, “and most ungentlemanly. But then, I’ve known from the start you are no gentleman.”

He smiled. “It must be that psychic ability of yours.”

She refused to rise to the bait this time. “I want to send for a solicitor.” With that, she folded her arms and pressed her lips together, making it quite clear she intended to say no more.

He considered what his next move should be, but before he could decide, there was a knock on the door, and Kyle entered the room. “Miss Haversham’s butler is here. Her aunt is with him.”

“Auntie’s here?” Sophie cried. “I don’t want her here! I don’t!”

Mick glanced at her, noting her distress. She had quite a close relationship to her aunt and would probably be humiliated if her aunt knew she was a thief.
That just might do the trick, “Show both of them in,” he ordered.

“No!” Sophie jumped to her feet and looked at Merrick. “I don’t want my aunt in here.”

The sergeant glanced at Mick. “Sir?”

Sophie turned to Mick as well. “Please, leave my aunt out of this. She has nothing to do with it.”

“Who’s trying to kill me?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know! I swear on my life.”

Her hands were shaking. There was more to this than just humiliation or shame. Those eyes of hers were focused on him, those big, soft, dark brown eyes. A man could drown in melted chocolate eyes like that.

He didn’t realize how hard he was gripping his pencil until it snapped in his hand.

The sound brought him to his senses. He couldn’t let desire influence him. His policeman’s instinct told him there was more going on here than Sophie stealing her cousin’s emerald necklace, and he’d better stop thinking like a convict fresh out of prison and start-thinking like the policeman that he was. He’d bloody well better remember his duty.

Still looking into her eyes, he said in a low, hard voice, “Show them both in.”

Her eyes began to glisten.

Oh, Christ
.

She was going to cry now. He hated it when suspects cried, especially the female ones.

But though there were tears in her eyes, she didn’t let them fall. She bit down hard on her lower lip and sank back down in her chair, looking the picture of silent misery.

Mick wasn’t going to feel sorry for her. He damn well wasn’t.

Violet bustled into the room. That sour-faced butler followed her inside and closed the door behind them.

“Sophie, dear,” Violet cried, “what is all this about?”

“Oh, Auntie!” Sophie said with a sob of dismay. “I told them to tell Grimmy not to bring you. I don’t want you here. Go home.”

“I will do no such thing!” Violet circled the table to her niece’s side. Grimstock remained by the door. He was silent and even more somber than usual. Mick noticed that he also seemed to be very nervous.

Violet wrapped her arms around her niece. “Darling, what’s this business of you being arrested for Katherine’s necklace?”

She pulled back from Sophie and turned to Mick with a frown of such disapproval and disappointment that he almost felt like a recalcitrant boy sent down from school. “I thought better of you than this, Inspector. Sophie’s no thief.”

“Auntie, don’t say any more!” Sophie put a hand on Violet’s arm as if to both warn and reassure her. “It’s all right.”

“All right?” Violet’s face creased with lines of worry. “This is all my fault, and I cannot let you—”

“Auntie, please be quiet. Don’t say another word.”

Mick heard the suddenly hard edge in Sophie’s voice, and he knew she was afraid her aunt would blurt out something important.

Violet did not heed her niece’s command. “No, no, Sophie, I won’t let your reputation suffer because of me.”

“Hang my reputation! I don’t care.”

“I do.” Violet looked over at Mick with a resolute expression. She drew a deep breath and said, “My niece did not take Katherine’s necklace, Inspector. I did.”

“No, Auntie, no,” Sophie moaned, lowering her head into her hands.

Mick stared at the older woman, nonplused. This was certainly an unexpected turn of events. The idea of Violet taking the emeralds had never occurred to him. He’d known all along Sophie was protecting someone, but he’d been thinking a murderer, not a thief. Not Violet.

“Why don’t we all sit down?” he suggested, gesturing to the table. “I’ll need a full statement.”

“She’s not going to make a statement.” Sophie glared at him. “She’s not saying another word. I took the necklace. Auntie had nothing to do with it.”

Violet started to speak, but Sophie’s voice rose over hers, loudly enough to drown her out. “Grimmy, I want you to send a runner to Harold at once. Tell him what’s happened and bring him here as quickly as possible. Then later this morning I want you to go see the viscountess.”

“No,” Violet’s voice cut in with an incisiveness surprising in an amiable, elderly lady. “Grimstock, you will do no such thing.” She turned to her niece. “Sophie, enough of this. The inspector obviously doesn’t believe you, and I don’t blame him. You are such a dreadful liar. Dearest, you don’t need to protect me anymore. I’m going to tell the inspector the truth.”

Sophie started to speak, but Violet pressed a finger
to her niece’s lips to silence her. “I may be a thief, but I will not let any other person take the blame. Especially not you, darling. I insist that you respect my wishes in this matter.”

Mick saw the anguish in Sophie’s face. She was beaten, and she knew it. With a resigned nod, she sank down in her chair.

Mick pulled a fresh pencil out of his jacket pocket and pulled his notepaper closer. He looked at Violet. “You admit that you stole your cousin’s necklace?”

“I do.” She raised her hands in a helpless gesture. “I take things. Jewelry, mostly, I am especially fond of lapis, having been an Egyptian queen in one of my past lives.”

Mick paused in writing his notes. “Cleopatra. Yes, I know.”

“Yes.” She looked both surprised and pleased that he knew about that. “My dear Maxwell that’s my late husband, you know—he never believed he was Marc Antony, but I knew it for certain.” A slight smile curved her lips. “He said Marc Antony made some very poor decisions at the battle of Actium, and he refused to believe he could be the reincarnation of someone that foolish.”

Mick concluded that Maxwell Summerstreet had been a man of logic and good sense, but he didn’t say so. “About the emeralds,” he said, “where did you find them?”

“In Katherine’s jewel case. Mrs. Peabody and I were having tea with her on the Thursday, and I just nipped upstairs to her room. I wanted to see the bath they just put in. It has one of those newfangled water
closets—you know the ones I mean, where you pull the chain, and whoosh, the water goes down. Very sanitary, but make a horrendous amount of noise, I think.”

Mick could see that Violet Summerstreet and Sophie Haversham were very much alike in some respects. “About the emeralds?”

“Yes, of course, let’s keep to the subject at hand. Very sound, Inspector, You remind me of Maxwell, you know. Straightforward and to the point. Well, as I said, I went upstairs, intending to look over their new bath. I saw the door into Katherine’s bedroom across the hall was open, and her jewel case was right there. Silly of her, really. Why, anyone could make away with it. I thought I’d have a peek.”

She paused, gave a deep sigh, then went on, “Katherine’s emeralds are very fine. They’ve been in the family for years. It was careless of her to leave them lying about, but then, Katherine is very absentminded.”

Mick glanced at Sophie, who was sitting slumped forward in her chair, with her fingertips pressed to her forehead as if she had a headache. With her aunt’s confession, all the fight seemed to have gone out of her.

He returned his attention to Violet. “What happened then?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know exactly.” She frowned. “I must have tucked the necklace away in my pocket or something, then Mrs. Peabody and I came home, and I put the necklace—” She paused and turned to Sophie. “Where did I put it, dear?”

“In the Spode, Auntie,” Sophie mumbled without lifting her head. “The trifle bowl. Grimstock decided to give all the china a dusting and found it.”

“Yes, that’s right. We almost never have trifle, so I must have thought that a very good hiding place.”

Mick glanced over at the butler, who had not moved from his position by the door. “Is this true?”

“It is,” Grimstock answered, turning to give him a resentful stare.

Satisfied by this corroboration, Mick turned to Sophie. “How did it get from the trifle bowl into your room?”

She looked up to meet his gaze across the table. “Grimmy told me he’d found the necklace, and he put it in my writing desk for safekeeping until I could return it. Then—”

“It
was
in the desk!” Violet cried. “Sophie, I told you, any thief might find things in that secret drawer.”

“You also told me to put it in my stockings because that was the safest possible hiding place,” Sophie answered. “I moved the necklace out of the desk and hid it in with my stockings. The inspector found it anyway. He searched our rooms and found it rolled up in one of my stockings.” She cast a resentful glance in his direction. “We both thought a gentleman would never look through a woman’s private things.”

Mick’s gaze locked with hers. “You were wrong.”

“I said, ‘a gentleman,’” she shot back. “I was not wrong.”

“You went through my niece’s stockings?” Violet looked at him with reproach. “That was most improper.”

“I am a policeman, ma’am. I have my job to do, and I can’t allow what’s proper and what’s not to interfere with my duty.”

“That’s true, of course. I hadn’t thought of it quite that way. But what on earth were you looking for?”

“Proof,” Sophie answered before he could do so. “Something that would indicate who tried to shoot him. He thinks I know who it is and that I’m trying to protect that person.”

Violet waved one hand in the air in a gesture that dismissed that theory. “The only way you would know that is if you had another premonition. You haven’t, have you, dear?”

“No. But it wouldn’t matter if I had. Mr. Dunbar doesn’t believe I have any psychic ability.”

Violet ignored that. “If Sophie discerns the identity of this assassin, shell tell you, Inspector. But I hope that from now on, if you need to search through my house, you will at least ask my permission first,” she said sternly.

“I’ll try to remember to do that, ma’am.”

“What about Auntie?” Sophie asked and put an arm around the older woman’s shoulders. “She’s not really a thief. This is just a sort of compulsion she can’t control. She didn’t take it to sell or anything like that.”

“Mrs. Summerstreet, what other jewels do you have in your possession that belong to other people?”

“None!” Sophie answered for her. “There aren’t any hidden away anywhere, and if Grimmy or I discover any more jewels, we will do what we always do. We will find out who they belong to, and arrange
for them to be returned at once. We always make certain that anything she takes is put back as soon as possible.”

“I see. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”

“No. We’ve told you the whole sordid truth.” She met his gaze steadily. “The real question is, what arc you going to do about it?”

Eight
 

Sophie’s question hung in the air of the interrogation room at Scotland Yard as both she and Auntie waited for Mick’s answer. Although Sophie often received very strong impressions of what other people were thinking and feeling, she had no idea what he intended to do. Auntie sat beside her, just as apprehensive as she was.

Mick looked from one woman to the other for a long time, as if trying to make up his mind. Finally, he looked at Violet. “Ma’am, why don’t you take your butler and go out to the waiting room? Sergeant Merrick is out there, and he will be happy to make both of you a cup of tea, I’m sure.”

It was not a request, and Auntie knew it. She stood up, nodding in acquiescence. “I know you’ll do the right thing, Inspector,” she said and walked out.
Grimmy followed her and closed the door after them.